Facebook recently concluded a pilot across 125 rural locations after purchasing bandwidth from state-run BSNL, and is currently in talks with various Internet service firms.Muntazir Abbas | ET Bureau | August 25, 2016, 09:17 IST

NEW DELHI: After Google, it is social media giant Facebook, which is looking to hook up with Indian Railways to provide WiFi across railway stations. RK Bahuguna, chairman of Indian Railways' communications arm RailTel, said the company will start talks with Facebook for expanding its WiFi coverage not only to railway stations but to villages in the vicinity as well.

"Facebook India has approached us for the WiFi initiative. We will engage with the company for the expansion of our Internet access programme across railways stations to cover villages in the vicinity," Bahuguna told ET.

Facebook declined to comment on ET's query on the matter. RailTel has a readily available optic fibre-based network across some 4,000 railway stations in the country. The state run company is currently rolling out Railwire-branded WiFi hotspots in partnership with Internet search major Google and aims to connect at least 100 railway stations with data network by the year end.

But unlike the existing Google-backed plan, RailTel wants to take the Internet to smaller rail stops, making it available to neighbouring villages via additional access points. Under the Google-RailTel Internet programme, nearly 2 million people access free WiFi every month across 21 railway stations.

"Through this (Facebook) initiative, we will be able to offer data services up to a 10-km radius from a connected rail stop, which however can further be increased by up to 25 km via additional access points," Bahuguna said. RailTel is capable of providing the passive infrastructure that includes optical fibre, local-area network (LAN) and power supply for the WiFi system within station premises in addition to Internet backhaul of 1Gbps at each station. Mark Zuckerberg-headed Facebook recently concluded a pilot across 125 rural locations after purchasing bandwidth from state-run Bharat Sanchar Nigam (BSNL), and is currently in talks with various Internet service firms for Express WiFi expansion in the country.

RailTel is also an Internet service provider and holds a category-A licence for it. According to Bahuguna, providing WiFi service is not viable for RailTel, but with support from the Universal Service Obligation (USO) fund, it can extend the programme to as many as 40,000 villages surrounding 4,000 Internet-ready railway stations across the country.